Monterey, CA

We traveled from Santa Cruz over to Monterey (about 20 mi) Wednesday . We sailed off the anchor as the fog appeared to be lifting and the wind starting up (~2pm), but the fog came back and the wind kept faltering... I think we deployed and stowed sails 4 times, and visibility was about 20-30 yards. We motored for a bit, then about half way across it suddenly got sunny, the wind filled in, and we put the sails back up and tooled along at 6-7kn the rest of the way. We passed very near two groups of feeding whales (grey?), which was incredible! They appeared to be bubble-netting, and we got quite a few nice showing of tails in the air. The kids didn't get sick, and we all had a good time. Our chart said there was an anchorage inside the breakwater and we were looking forward to some calm and a short dinghy row with a protected landing. When we got here and peeked inside, we were amazed to see it absolutely jam-packed with boats on mooring balls, so were outside the breakwater exposed to N swell, but with a west wind which put us beam-to-the-seas and rolling badly. I finally set a stern anchor from the dingy (in the dark) and pulled our stern around so we were taking the swells on the bow - much better, and definitly worth the effort. We've seen quite a few sea otters - they're cute and entertaining! There's now one about 20 yards away doing barrel rolls!

We've been rather cold and damp for over a week, and are really looking forward to warmer weather and water, and getting out of the persistant fog. The next planned passage is about 90 miles, and will be our first overnighter since the trip to San Francisco, but it should get us out of the fog, so I'm looking forward to it..

We're finally keeping pace with our power usage now that I've got all 4 solar panels mounted. We're down about 35AH in the morning, and back up to full in the evening... let see, that's about 3% discharge, which means the batteries will nearly last forever... The wind generator seems to be a bit of a detriment, as it casts a shadow on the arch-mounted panels, and we don't often have enough wind to make it put out. I'm sure there will be times when it's the primary producer, so I'll keep it around. The solar panels actually seem to produce more power when it's slightly foggy - the diffused light doesn't cause shadows (from the backstay, radar antenna, MOB pole, wind generator, boom, topping lift, SSB antenna... lot's of stuff in the air on our boat!). We were getting 15A for awhile yesterday and you couldn't see more than 30 yards (and I got sunburned, too).

We'll wander around Monterey for a couple of days, probably go the aquarium. We need showers, and it'd be nice to do some laundry. I've been hand washing the things that are necessary, but the laundry bags are slowly filling, and the laundry I've washed hasn't dried in three days due to the fog and dampness. . We're down to about 75 gallons of fresh water... still more than many boats carry, but it's nice to have enough that we don't have to worry about it. I'd also like to find a hardware store to get some foam insulation for the divider in the fridge/freezer... I found we had a dozen egg-popcicles yesterday (eggs do funny things when they're frozen solid!)... at least we know the refrigeration system has plenty of cooling capacity!

The propane tank ran out last night - one 20lb tank lasted about 2 months... good thing we have 2 of them!